“It’s not what you think,” he said, his tone darkening.
“I hope it’s exactly what I think,” Hades replied. “Hephaestus, tell me you’ve chosen a side.”
* * *
Hades returned to Nevernight with the ring safe in his pocket. He kept his hand around the small box, comforted by the weight of it, though that comfort was disrupted by a feeling that something was wrong. There was a discontent that tangled his veins, and it was like the world was too quiet and too still.
Persephone.
Antoni and Zofie burst through the doors of Nevernight. Behind them, a girl followed, the blond from Persephone’s work—Helen—who sat at the front desk. Hades could feel their hysteria, knew they were about to deliver fatal news.
“She’s gone!” Zofie exclaimed. “Persephone! She’s missing!”
Black spots clouded his vision and he growled. “Where was she last?”
“We were about to leave the Acropolis when she went downstairs,” Helen explained, her breathing uneven. “She said she had to say goodbye to someone. When she didn’t come back, I went to look and found…well…this.”
She handed a notebook to Hades, and he snatched it from her hands.
“What is it?” he demanded.
“It’s not good,” Antoni said. “Someone was stalking her.”
Hades opened the book and read one of the entries—they were all dated and handwritten.
Date: 6/27
Persephone had lunch with me today. She told me that her god was angry with her. If she were with me, I’d never be angry with her. I’d make her feel real good.
Date: 7/1
Today Persephone wore pink. Her dress was so tight, I could see each time her nipples hardened. She had to be thinking of me.
Hades felt bile rise in the back of his throat as he read entry after entry. They were all like this: short, dated paragraphs that detailed what Persephone was wearing, conversations the man had had with her, and gifts he’d left her. Whoever this was had planned this abduction. He’d wanted to hurt her, torture her, rape her.
Hades’s body shook with a fury he could not contain as his glamour melted away.
What if he was too late?
“Who is this man?” he demanded through his teeth.
“They call him Pirithous,” said Helen.
Pirithous.
“He was a janitor,” she added. “No one ever took notice of him…except…Persephone.”
And it was likely her kindness he had abused.
Hades’s magic welled, and in the next second, a familiar screech broke the air as the Furies—Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone—erupted from the floor around him. They hovered in a circle, their pale bodies adorned with black snakes that hissed as they slithered around their arms and their stomachs and their legs.
“Lord Hades,” they said, their voices a horrible, strange echo.
“Find Persephone,” he said. “Do what you must to keep her safe.”
The Furies screamed as they accepted their orders, and their black wings beat, whipping the air as they rocketed toward the ceiling, breeching the pinnacle of Nevernight, sending chunks of obsidian flying across New Athens.
“What can we do?” Helen asked.
“There is nothing you can do,” he snarled, and she stumbled back at his rage. He did not care that he had startled her, because he had silenced her, and that was what he needed right now—the quiet, so he could follow the Furies’ magic. While he held on to them, a finger twined around thread, his mind felt like a battlefield, erupting with nothing but thoughts of the consequences of finding her too late, and that only fueled his agony.
He knew when the Furies had located her because the tension between his magic and theirs lessened, and while he felt the smallest sense of relief, he would not be okay until he laid eyes on her, until he was certain she was unharmed.
He teleported, manifesting in the shadows of his own magic to find Persephone bound to a wooden chair. Her face was stained with tears—eyes red, lashes wet—and all around the room was what looked like wood debris. Then his eyes fell to the man who had abducted her.
Pirithous.
He was unassuming—thin and willowy with dark hair and high cheekbones. There was something to his features that made Hades think he had Divine blood. He was crumpled against the wall, a massive stake protruding from his chest.
He was dead, but not for long.
Hades called on his magic, and Pirithous gasped, then moaned, the pain of his wound shuddering through him. When he saw Hades, he began to whimper.
“I brought you back to life so I can tell you that I will enjoy torturing you for the rest of your eternal life. In fact, I think I will keep you alive so you can ruminate in your pain.”
Hades snapped his fingers, and a chasm opened beneath Pirithous’s body. As the Earth fell away, he took pleasure in the sound of the man’s screams echoing as he fell to Tartarus.
“Alecto, Megaera, Tisiphone, see to Pirithous,” Hades ordered. The three would guard him until he could take over. They bowed and vanished, and Hades was left to care for Persephone.
He released her from the coarse bindings Pirithous had used to restrain her, noting the redness on her wrists. As he knelt before her, she fell into his arms, and he gathered her to him, teleporting to the Underworld. Once in their bedroom, she burst into tears, and he felt helpless to do anything but sit with her and hold her and let her expend every ounce of her fear.
“I’m so sorry,” Hades said as he rocked her. “I did not know. I’m so sorry.”
While he held her, he felt like breaking too. He could not control the beat of his own heart, could not stop his stomach from twisting or the nausea from climbing up this throat. He was angry for so many reasons, but at the end of the day, he was devastated that she had not been safe, that there was a possibility she would never feel safe again.
He did not know how long Persephone cried, but there came a time when she quieted, and when she pulled away, she took his heart with her.
“I need to scrub him from my skin.”
Hades said nothing because he feared what he would say and instead took her to the baths. Once there, he sat apart from her while she undressed and entered the hot pool. He watched as she washed every part of her skin until she was red from head to toe, and all he could think was that he had touched her there—everywhere. By the time she finished, his hands were fisted so tightly, his nails had cut into his palms.
He only healed them when she crawled into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. He was grateful for her closeness and held her tight.